Victoria Kennedy’s Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute
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ABC News(BOSTON) — Anyone can now experience the challenge of life as a U.S. senator.
The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate opens to the public this week in Boston, following a public dedication Monday attended by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as well as a bipartisan contingent of Capitol Hill colleagues of former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died of brain cancer in 2009 after serving nearly 47 years as the “Liberal Lion” of the Senate.
“Ted understood that the only point of running for office was to get something done. Not to posture. Not to sit there worrying about the next election or the polls. To take risk,” President Obama said at the dedication on Monday. “There are Republicans here today for a reason – because they knew Ted as somebody who bridged the partisan divide over and over and over.”
Victoria Kennedy, co-founder of the Institute that bears her late husband’s name, gave ABC News’ David Wright a behind-the-scenes tour last week, explaining her husband’s vision for the institute, which was first discussed over a family dinner in 2002.
“Teddy said everybody knows about the presidency because there are presidential libraries, but the truth is that nobody understands or knows anything about the Senate. And he’d get that mischievous look in his eye and say, ‘We’re in Article 1 of the Constitution,'” Victoria Kennedy said. “And he was such a man of the Senate, loved it so much, he wanted people to feel that same way.”
“He also thought about that next generation of men and women who would serve in the Senate, and he wanted them to get inspired to get into the public sphere,” Kennedy added.
The institute, located next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, features a full-scale replica of the U.S. Senate chamber, as well as a recreation of Kennedy’s Capitol Hill office filled with Kennedy family mementos.
But more than a museum, the Kennedy Institute is a high-tech civics class, using touch tablets to guide visitors through interactive exhibits on the history and functioning of the Senate. Student groups can participate in longer sessions in the replica Senate chamber, debating and voting on a legislative issue of the day, such as comprehensive immigration reform.
“What we’re hearing from teachers is the whole way back from school, it’s not like any other field trip, they’re talking about the issues,” Victoria Kennedy said. “They’re engaged talking about what they just experienced, they want to come back and be senators again.”
The Kennedys were the only three brothers in history to all serve as senators. John F. Kennedy was a senator from 1953 until his election as president in 1960, while Robert Kennedy was a senator from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. Ted Kennedy sat at JFK’s desk in the back of the Senate chamber the entire time he served from 1962 until 2009.
“He was entitled to sit in the front row, move up with seniority because he certainly had a lot of that,” Victoria Kennedy said while giving a tour of the replica Senate chamber in Boston. “But he always liked sitting in the back and I think it’s because you can see everything from here. I think he also enjoyed being with younger, more junior members where he could talk to them.”
Echoing President Obama’s words Monday on Kennedy’s legacy in the Senate, Victoria Kennedy says it was her husband’s ability to connect with other senators through personal relationships that made him successful at legislating.
“Ted Kennedy reached across the aisle and he had great relationships across the aisle,” Kennedy says. “He would listen until…they could find common cause and move an issue forward.”
And while Washington remains gridlocked today, Kennedy says she hopes the institute will help teach its visitors, young and old, the value of debate and compromise.
“Legislating is hard and that’s one of the things you learn when you go through this place….But what we’re showing here is you need to look each other in the eye, talk, and find that nugget of common ground,” Kennedy said.
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